From the series of poems titled, “Conversations with the Virgin,” in which I, a non-Catholic, talk with the Holy Mother and consider the relationships I have with some of the women in my life. I presented this series at the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Conference in Tucson in 2006.

FULL PARDON

Lady of Luminous Laughter,I know you look down on meand wonder at my stupidity,that you must marvel at my inabilityto appreciate the wonder that saturates my life.

Prone to melancholy, sometimesI pretend that my tears are born of gleeand that the sudden lurching snapthat jerks me down toward the earth’s hot coreis natural, even desirable.

Sometimes I confuse youwith the young Cambodian womanwho runs the cash register at the liquor store,so determined to pull from mesome detail of my day, yet always willingto pay me for my reluctance with patience,with her boundless exuberance,with her predictable reassurance,with these four simple words, “You are so beautiful!”

Sometimes you remind me of my friend Kat,(You know, the one with the brain tumor?)and the way she looked at me that dayand how, with a smile that lifted onlythe left side of her face, she said simply,“You have a beautiful life.”

Sometimes my face turns hotand my shame grows unchecked,blossoming uninhibited in my chestuntil almost no oxygen remains andall I can think is that I should havevisited Mamma before she died.

Then, I imagine you there, in that otherworldly place,with your arms crossed gently over your breasts,holding your veil soft against your faceand floating toward the ceilingwhere, with only the occasional silent smile,you rain peace and understanding from the rafters.*************************

FORMATION,REFORMATION,& THE SUBSEQUENT MELTDOWN

Lady of Longing,I have learned somethingabout the way days fall into placelike ideas, preordained packets,not cubelike by necessity,but illuminated and interconnected.

To allow life to fall awaygracefullymust be the greatest gift.

And if there wa not enough touching,I fear there were never enough days.

So the sequence remains.The pieces will fall.And when they’ve all dropped,the falling will stop.There will be lightningwith no rainand no thunder.

Hardly fodder for the tabloids,yet off the scalein unexpectedness.

*************************CROUCHING APHRODITELady of Landlocked Songs,I just can’t do this today,this brilliant juggling of gibberish,when no sounds express my longingand I need you to help me walk,to hold me, loosely like a gifted doll,putting first one foot and then the otheruntil nothing fills my toothless pumpkin headbut endless iambs heel to toeand we’re embeddedin the sway of left to right.

I know God loves me.How that breathless hip-hop moves me!But I need to push this pale orange airthat heats my skin past ripeness,need to cover the same lineover and againuntil my footprints can be trackedon this sandy, shifting path.

I need the background of chimesto help me feelthat ambient steel sounddown my spine,so like that unexpected tinglewhen I first saw your eyes shimmeringat the bottom of the lake.

And, Lady, I need to know;what does it taketo learn to sink like that?

*************************

I JUST WANTED TO SAYSo listen, oh Lady of Unlimited Wisdom, I have curledaround your leg like a cat, overcoming my aloofness,shedding the burden of my loneliness,with the bone deep wish just to be scratched.I have snagged your hems intentionally at timesand been dragged down the same melancholy pathunnoticed by the masses for days and weeks and years.

I admit I have been greedy in my quest for love.Like water thrown wasted on the floor beforea thirsty beast, my faith spreads thin and in the end evaporates.But I will settle for the dregs of last morning’s dew,for I have been told by those who knowthat you have always been the one who holds the answers.

Thank God your gaze is elsewhere focused,for to face your vision under the gravity of such sightwould surely signal the end of life as I have known it.And I have known it. I have learned that pain containedcan be diluted, allowed to seep from day into night,night into day. And I’ve grown tired, yet I cannot sleep…

I went to a funeral yesterday, and after only momentsin the church, I was caught by the organized beautyof religion’s patterns. Admiring even the placementof the choir chairs in the loft, I became confused,as usual, by the difference between aesthetics and grace,and was transported to that childhood placewhere light once shone so sweetly from a promised shore.

I was twelve, the age of accountability,and the Church of the Nazarene still held substantial mystery.But promises were followed too closely by demands,so, growing cold, I turned deliberately toward pursuitshinted at by the new boy four rows back.

No cushions on the seats made squirming inevitable,and the wooden pockets on the backs of the bencheswere always empty of visitor cards.Since we didn’t do that introductory thing,where visitors remain seated, and regulars,like falsely reassuring, curious aliens,stand, turn in all directions,and seek reluctant hands for the shaking--I knew I was on my own when it came to making contact.

I’m not sure what happened to the boy’s real mom,but he had a nice new one with blond hairand soft, flower-colored clothing,perhaps a little too polished to be proper for church,but her husband was an usherand their family always sat near the back.

I think I was drawn to them, because I, too, was shiny.Having buffed myself almost raw,I thought that taking off the rough edgeswould somehow make me less visible.In effect, I had a patina that screamedfor the whole world’s attention.

Back to the boy. Eddie. More precisely, Edgar Howelland how he looked at me covertly in the beginning. But thenhe made friends with the other guys and when they all sat together,they looked at me from what seemed like all directions at onceuntil I felt like a compass, spinning slightly from side to sideas though vibrating from unseen forces.

We went on, content with this pattern for a while.But things change. As Eddie grew tall and handsome,he acted more interested, especially when his friendsfanned the embers. And at least onceevery Sabbath evening that fall, he issued mea personal invitation to accompany him behind the church.I blushed and half-pretended not to hear or understand,until his taunting demands for attentionpushed us both off center and I said, “Okay.”

The audience, astonished, withdrew. It was November and the wind was cold,and though I think what he really wanted to dowas return to the safety of the sanctuary,he had to follow through on his implied threatsof what he would do to me if he got me alone.

So he got me alone. And he kissed mewith what would surely have been described as expertise,until we were both a little breathlessand immediately giddy with our newfound guilt.(I like to think the reality was too sweet to share with his friendsand that no one has ever mentioned that moment until now...)So we met halfway, two rows up for him,two rows back for me, where every Sunday,we shielded each other from friends and family,and we held hands religiously.

But things change--even memories. And I wonder if I remember the truth. Maybe I’ve droppedimportant sensory data along the path on my way to today,but edited reality has taught methere are some moments that should not be taken for granted.

So I thought today about that kiss,and how it made me late for Bible class…I thought about the teacher named Birdie,and how I remember liking herbecause she loved her husband, tall and quiet and slim…She seemed afraid of the rest of the world,but I could tell she had no fear of him.She was a tiny, dark woman with finger-waved hair,and I liked to watch her, not because she was spectacular,but mostly… because she was not hellbent on watching me.

They had the most beautiful daughter in the world.A model,or an actress maybe--she almost never came to church. I assumed her job kept her busy, you know,traveling the globe, tossing back her glowing, golden hair,shoulder length, never looking too quickly awaywith gray-blue eyes that moved calmly from face to face.She had a small dark mole beside her pouty mouth,and she was tall, with nice ankles and soft hands.I confess, I pretended she was the future Me.

But I grow sad thinking of Birdie and her family.I remember one Sunday in particular,when Birdie’s die-cut felt Zacheusrefused to stick to her die-cut felt Sycamore tree.She tried over and over to make it work, butthe fourth time he fell to the floor,she started to cry…very quietly.Somehow I knew that her son,whom I had never even seen,would not be coming home from Vietnam.

I wanted to touch her hand that day, but I didn’t.And since I was developing the habit of living without words,I couldn’t tell her that somewhere, someone knewhow she felt. All I could do was pick up the felt pieces,lay them neatly in their precisely cut storage places,and hope they would be ready to stickthe next time she pressed them on the sturdy tree.

And, Lady, I have to admit,sometimes when I talk to you,it’s really Birdie’s face I see.And I just wanted to say, you know, how sorry​I’ve always beenabout your son.